MOSCOW, January 26. /TASS/. The United States has issued a visa to Russian cosmonaut Nikolay Chub so that he can train at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Russia’s Roscosmos state space corporation said in a statement.
"The US has issued an entry visa to Roscosmos cosmonaut Nikolay Chub. The cosmonaut plans to travel to the US to participate in a training session at the Johnson Space Center, which is what all cosmonauts do before a flight to the ISS," the statement reads.
Roscosmos said on January 22 that the United States’ refusal to issue a visa to Chub raised a question over his safety during his 2023 mission to the International Space Station (ISS). According to the Russian space corporation, the cosmonaut needed a US visa for a five-week session to learn about the US segment of the space station.
Foreign astronauts usually get training sessions at Russia’s Yury Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center located in Zvyozdny Gorodok (or Star City) outside Moscow, while Russian cosmonauts train at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, obtaining knowledge about the Russian and US segments of the ISS respectively. Training sessions are held regardless of what spacecraft is planned to be used to deliver cosmonauts and astronauts to orbit.
Chub is a member of the backup crew for the ISS Expedition 68, scheduled to travel to the orbital outpost aboard the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft in September. He is also part of the main crew of the Expedition 69 that will be delivered to the ISS by a Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft in the spring of 2023.